Trailhead Reflection (Q1)
On Christmas day of 2017, I decided to dedicate time each week day to intentional Salesforce learning. That meant a lot of time on trailhead. This is what I‘ve learn to far.
1. Rules are important structure
This idea was was inspired by 100daysofcode. Although I’m skipping weekends, the spirit of consistency has been adopted. It was important to create a set of rules that gave structure to how I would approach my challenge. On their advice, I made some rules:
a) I only need to complete one module a weekday. Weekends are mine and I can do more or just chill but they’re not required.
b) Skipping is allowed for legitimate reasons: holidays (I planned to take more time for myself this year and I really want to unplug during that time), sickness (I get headaches sometimes and I just can’t look at a screen), and travel (I’m not going to be paying for airplane wifi). Note that neither “tired” nor “busy at work” are not acceptable excuses — even though they happen. That said, I’m prone to biting off more than I can chew so it’s important to give myself some breathing room.
c) Document the journey! Whatever the period of time, the documentation needs to be consistent. I’ve chosen to document quarterly to allow me a good chunk of time to reflect on.
d) If I miss a day, I’ve got to make it up. Come end of the year, I need to have 1 badge for every working day i.e. a badge to week day ratio of 1.
2. If it’s important, you’ll find the time.
It’s really that simple. If it’s important to you then do what it takes to make it a priority. That might mean going out a little later on a Friday night, waking up earlier to get the learning started before work, or doing a few units on the minibus.
3. You don’t need to achieve your goal to make progress
Failure really is part of the journey! Just remember the bigger picture. I didn’t actually do a module a day because I was traveling, got sick, or was just too tired. However, when I was in the swing of it, I sat down and spent a good couple of hours studying. I recall spending a whole Saturday working through a superbadge. Momentum is everything!
The bigger picture is that having goals provides a framework to assess your own performance and a provide roadmap for your development. As always, you want your goals to be SMART. The tough part is making sure the goals are attainable and realistic. That’s why the idea of a roadmap is important.
“A roadmap is a living, breathing, dynamic tool which evolves and changes over time” — department of product
4. Telling people creates community
I told some colleagues and friends. That has helped keep me accountable and made sure I don’t completely fall off the bandwagon. In the beginning there were a few times when I thought “meh” but knowing that I had told people I was going to do this, meant that I needed to get it done.
They can also help! I was out one Friday night with a friend but I hadn’t completed a module. She helped me find and complete a module over dinner. Definite highlight :)
I’ve discovered many leaderboards, my favourite is Toptrailblazers (You should join). This allowed me to see how I was faring against others, and gave me a more holistic picture of my progress.
Lastly, my friend and I just started a monthly competition to see who gets the most points. I lost this month (no excuses) but I’ll be back in April to deliver a thrashing! Having someone to compete against truly leverages gamification and besides, a little healthy competition never hurt :)
5. There’s a method to the madness
With 2.5 years of Salesforce experience under my belt, doing a whole bunch of trails for the sake of gamification alone is madness. Badges on their own don’t prove anything. It’s best to target aspects that will advance your career, broaden your horizons, affirm your knowledge, and create an appetite for learning. Here’s my method (adopted from BobBuzzard):
a) Self Assessment: If I should know the topic .e.g creating an object, I skip to the quiz and try to complete it. If I fail, I go back and read the material within the unit. This helps me assess gaps in my knowledge.
b) Depth: If it’s a topic that I don’t know well or I haven’t been exposed to, I can go intoconsiderable amount of depth by working through the units and doing related reading. For example, even though I have a really good handle on automation, I haven’t had to build a single approval process on a project so that area needed work. Working through modules that had approval processes helped me understand how they work and what setup would look like. One of my projects this year has a large number of them so I now feel well positioned to design them.
c) Practice: In my opinion, there’s no substitute for practical experience. Especially when it comes to tech. Thus it’s important to mix theory with practice. For this reason, building up to and completing practical modules and even superbadges are important! Trailhead recognises the significance of practice over theory: they award more points for practical modules/projects and superbadges just bring in the points!
To quote Bob:
“Badges are a side effect of learning” — Bob Buzzard
As a result, what I’ve seen is an increased bias towards on platform solutions. This is important because it means that we are not trying to rebuild functionality that Salesforce offers. That is helpful to every organisation we work with because it means that as new features are released, they are well positioned to use them with little to no reconfiguration. The more I know, the more I can take this approach!
End of quarter assessment:
I’ve made good progress on my goals. I’ve shown the early commitment necessary to get there come December 31st. Right now, my biggest challenge are resisting the urge to earn badges for the sake of the badge. I intended to resist the temptation by targeting modules, projects, and trails that are inline with the #JourneyToCTA or are inline with project work. Areas for improvement in the next quarter:are quickly getting back on the horse when I fall off.
Quick Stats
- Modules completed: 94
- Days completed: 52
- Days missed: 20
- Current badge to week day ratio: 94 badges/65 week days = 1.45
- Being recognised as a trailblazer
